My Thumb

Posted on by kmarrs

This will be short. It’s been a crazy week where few things have gone as planned and there aren’t enough hours in the day.  Nothing bad has happened.  In fact some good has happened.  But I’m tired.

Anyway

My maternal grandmother had a super green thumb.  So does my mom.  I honestly thought it had skipped me because I spent the first 30 something years of my life unable to keep a single plant alive.

But I don’t know. Something happened in the last few years and suddenly I can keep most anything alive.  Sure some things die, but I’m having more success than not.

I want to show some of my latest successes.

I’ve had a lot of succulents over the past few years, but this is the first time one has flowered for me. She’s been working on it for weeks!
The beginnings of my first strawberry!
This is what a strawberry flower looks like. I have a handful of them out there turning into berries right now!
Yes I very much planted this clover! I attempted last year with limited success. This year my efforts were fruitful. Next year I’m planting 10 times as much!

I have an extensive garden growing out back, but these are what I currently find the most exciting. I’ll show off the rest of the fruits of my labor (pun intended) later when I have things to harvest.

EMDR

Posted on by kmarrs

Despite the trauma train that has been the last 6 months kicking up some dust, I’m actually fairly stable. So in this spirit, I’m working on processing the trauma I’ve been through in the past 37 years. There are all sorts of things, big and little, and I’m ready to deal with it all.

DBT is great for helping to survive the day to day. But I’m doing that fairly well. Even when I was dying, I made it through each day intact. DBT isn’t set up to deal with the past.

There is a form of therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing it’s perfectly set up to help process past traumas and desensitize people with PTSD. It is a little tricky to explain, but it’s basically puts the patient almost into a trance. I’m going to provide some links to web pages and books that can explain this much better than I can below.

I will say that it is helpful. I’ve only just begun the process and I have a long ways to go, but I finally feel hope that I can let go of the past and come out the other end happier and less angry. PTSD makes me angry and I don’t like that about myself. But I can fix it. And EMDR is the key.

https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/
https://youtu.be/Pkfln-ZtWeY

Bannit, S.P. (2012). The trauma toolkit: Healing trauma from the inside out. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.
Scaer, R. (2005). The trauma spectrum: Hidden wounds and human resiliency. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Van Der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Viking.
Parnell, L. (2008). Tapping in: A step-by-step guide to activating your healing resources through bilateral stimulation. Boulder, CO: Sounds True Books.
Shapiro, F., & Forrest, M. (1997). EMDR: The breakthrough “eye movement” therapy for overcoming stress, anxiety, and trauma. New York: Basic Books.
Shapiro, F. (2013). Getting past your past: Take control of your life with self-help techniques from EMDR therapy. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books.

Thomas is Leaving the Nest

Posted on by kmarrs

Thomas turns 18 in early July. On his 18th birthday he plans to move to Wisconsin to work on his long time best friend, new girlfriend’s farm. Until that point he is living with his grandmother.

Thomas has become a difficult person to live with. He’d say the same about me. I won’t publically speak ill of my kid, but we have major personality clashes tearing us apart. I think we’ll get along a lot better now that there is distance between us. I sure hope so.

I do, of course, miss my kid. But with him turning 18, his destiny is out of my hands.

Natural Fibers

Posted on by kmarrs

I’ve kind of wondered why it is some shirts are itchier to sweat in than others. Then I learned in the last 9 months you can be allergic to certain fibers. I started paying attention, and sure enough, I seem to have a mild allergy to polyester.

I finally sat down the other day and pulled out all polyester from my closet and all of it was things I stopped wearing anyway over the years because they made me itch. I had been on the fence about it but they don’t Spark Joy so it all went to Goodwill. I’m now slowly working on bringing more natural fibers into my closet. I’m mostly looking at linen and cotton. Though there will be a bit of spandex in some of the cotton blends as the low amount of spandex doesn’t seem to make me super itchy.

I’ve been thinking about buying a white linen dress as a summer wardrobe staple for a while now. I finally sat down tonight and did some searching online. I looked at hundreds of dresses, most of which just didn’t appeal, but I found this stunner in my size for like 20$ and I couldn’t resist.

I like that it’s white linen but there is still so much color to it! I guess most people when they think white linen aren’t picturing something like this, but I really love it!

You can find it in a multitude of sizes here. Mind the size chart.

I’m having fun finding new pieces for my closet, but it is super frustrating how most clothing is made of synthetics or super expensive. A lot of it is also super boring when it really doesn’t have to be. I think that’s why I like the above dress so much. It’s affordable linen yet has personality.

The Criminals

Posted on by kmarrs

Pretty much the day we decided Ziggy needed to go back, the Marrs Family Kids’ Union met and decided they wanted cats. Specifically two: one for Sammy and one for Thomas since they both have an ESA letter.

I was in a tough spot because we had literally just started the process of taking Ziggy back and I wasn’t sure I wanted to move on that fast, and I had all the stuff needed for a dog. I spent a lot of money on dog stuff and it would cost even more to bring cats into the house. But on the other hand, I was going back to work after being off for 6 weeks, in less than a week, and Sammy was suicidal. I had to do something! And the kids were adamant they did not want another dog.

So I brought out a newly paid-off card, called it a medical (mental health) expense, and ordered everything we’d need off chewy. I’m a pushover and well, the union had made an overall reasonable demand.

I then proceeded to scour Pet Finder and Craig’s List looking for 3 kittens from the same litter. I figured if Thomas and Sammy were getting kittens, I wanted one too and could get my own ESA letter. It took some hunting, but I found three 8-month-old kittens that were up-to-date on shots and already fixed. We brought them home the day before I went back to work.

Meet:

Miss Soot Sprite Spooky Pants the Cyrptid Marrs Esq

Ash

Angel

They are criminals

Ziggy Exits Stage Left

Posted on by kmarrs

I tried so hard. Constant training. Professional help. Rewards. Deterrents. It seemed every time we took a step or two forward, we took twice as many steps back. He was getting more and more aggressive and I was out of options. I gave him the best life I could but he just wasn’t… I don’t want to say he wasn’t what we needed because that makes it sound like he just had too much energy. He was aggressive to the point that he was attacking multiple people every day no matter what we did. We spent a lot of time, effort, and money to try and get him to calm down but he just couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

I have zero doubt he was abused in his first home. It’s obvious when you interact with him. He was taught, through abuse, to be aggressive. I too was taught through abuse to be aggressive. I understood that in Ziggy which is why I tried so hard and didn’t want to give up.

But in the end, I had to put the safety of my kids, some of them still little, first. And he was a serious threat to their safety. I took him back to the shelter in mid-April. They ran some behavior tests on him to determine his fate. I don’t know what they decided. I want to hope that maybe he went to an adult home that could try something I didn’t think of. Though with how aggressive he was I kind of doubt it. But I don’t know.

I tried so hard. I still feel so horrid over this. Sammy, a month later, still cries himself to sleep some nights. I so badly wanted to be Ziggy’s forever home. But he was so hurt and scared and just traumatized. Wherever he is I hope he’s at peace. I gave him the best life I could in the meantime.